


The Night Of

by forthegreatergood



Category: Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: Comfort, First Kiss, Fluff, Light Angst, Love Confessions, M/M, Pining, Post-Almost Apocalypse (Good Omens), Post-Apocalypse, Requited Unrequited Love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-29
Updated: 2020-03-29
Packaged: 2021-02-28 23:20:13
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,743
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23385139
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/forthegreatergood/pseuds/forthegreatergood
Summary: If only Aziraphale can figure out Agnes Nutter’s final prophecy, he’ll have the rest of his life to figure out how to win Crowley’s affections.  Right?
Relationships: Aziraphale/Crowley (Good Omens)
Comments: 27
Kudos: 348
Collections: Good Omens (Complete works)





	The Night Of

**Author's Note:**

  * For [foxyk](https://archiveofourown.org/users/foxyk/gifts).



> All characters property of Terry Pratchett, Neil Gaiman, and the respective production and licensing companies.
> 
> * * *
> 
> Not beta-read, all our brains are swiss cheese right now, just enjoy the damn fic, folks! :P

Aziraphale wobbled slightly, the finality of what had happened sweeping over him like a squall line. He’d really _done_ it. He’d saved the world. He’d saved everything.

He swallowed thickly and tried to keep his lower lip from trembling. Pity it had cost him everything he held dear, but some things couldn’t be helped. He took a slow, steady breath, counting in and then out. The important thing--really, the most important thing possible--was that humanity was still alive. That the Earth was still intact. He took another breath and clenched his hands around his knees, letting fingers dig in until it hurt. That Crowley was free.

Aziraphale stifled the impulse to look to his left, to glance at Crowley out of the corner of his eye. The demon wasn’t looking at him; he could feel that much, the absent weight of Crowley’s gaze. Probably already lost in the bottle of wine he’d conjured. Well, Crowley had earned it, hadn’t he? He’d found a way to stop the clock on Satan himself, given them the wiggle room Adam had needed to figure things out. He’d spit in Hell’s face once and for all, gotten out of their power for good. Aziraphale could only imagine how giddy he’d be, if he were in Crowley’s shoes.

Then the bottle of wine, Crowley’s hand still curled around its neck, was practically in his lap. “You’re about to crack a molar, angel.”

Aziraphale couldn’t help a ghost of a laugh at that. He made himself straighten up, let go of his knees, take the bottle instead. His bookshop had burned. Even the prophecies Crowley had salvaged from the wreckage were gone. The arrangement was over, dissolved like a pearl in vinegar between Crowley trying to abandon the planet and Aziraphale’s own feckless flailing. What had he even been trying to accomplish, shouting at Crowley that they weren’t friends and that he didn’t like him? Had he really thought a demon was going to beg an angel to take it back, to say it wasn’t so?

He lifted the bottle to his lips and closed his eyes. Crowley had at least been asking him to come along for the ride. He’d dismissed Crowley in no uncertain terms, even if under it all he’d been desperately hoping that Crowley would cave in the face of it. It hadn’t been the worst move, really--it had mostly worked before. He’d retreat, pretend to some new hesitancy over their bargain, and Crowley would scramble to meet the altered terms. 

The only time it had failed him had been Crowley’s mad quest for holy water, and even then, it had put off that heart-stopping danger for a full century. Aziraphale lowered the bottle, letting the solid weight of the glass ground him. Then again, things might have been less brittle if he hadn’t made Crowley work so hard for it, if the arrangement hadn’t simply felt like a gentler hand leading him around by the nose. He should apologize, shouldn’t he? While he still had time, before Gabriel caught up with him.

Aziraphale lifted the bottle again, took a much longer pull off it this time. He wondered if the humans had come up with a name for the feeling that was welling up in his breast, that homesickness for a place that didn’t exist. He could never go back to Heaven now, but the regret settling into his bones wasn’t for the Heaven that was lost to him but the Heaven that should have existed, the Heaven that would have listened and agreed with him and stopped on its own. The Heaven that he’d never had, and he was only just now realizing that he’d never had. And the Heaven that he did have, well… He was playing with fire, all right.

_Choose your faces wisely._

Aziraphale made to hand the bottle back to Crowley, who waved him off. Choose his faces wisely--it seemed like it shouldn’t be that hard to puzzle out. He’d been choosing his faces often enough, if not always wisely, since Rome. He just doubted the archangels would be fooled by the mask of the obedient, dutiful principality this time, broken and scorched as it was now. He’d let it slip too many times around too many of their number in the past few days. And he didn’t feel much like playing the martyr with them the way he did with Crowley, coaxing a demon into a show of sympathy and solicitousness with a parade of his petty hurts. Crowley didn’t have any reason to keep humoring him, but Gabriel? Gabriel would likely to fly into a full-throated, thundering rage at it.

Crowley checked his watch, then slouched down on the bench.

“Don’t let me keep you,” Aziraphale said, fingers going tight on the bottle. He’d see Crowley again, surely, if only he could figure out the last prophecy. Crowley wouldn’t turn down an invitation to lunch, not after all this time. Aziraphale could lie and say he owed him a meal, or pretend it was to compare notes on post-Armageddon surveillance. 

He thought of spending three courses trying to compete with Crowley’s phone for the demon’s attention, and his face fell.

“Where’m I going, that you’re keeping me from?” Crowley asked, cocking his head. Between exhaustion and the wine, he was more liquid than solid, spine undulating of its own accord as he moved.

“Wherever you like, I imagine,” Aziraphale said, forcing a smile. Crowley was free. Aziraphale should be happy for him, he knew he should. Hell was merciless, and cruel, and vindictive, and Crowley had hated answering to them. Even if Aziraphale had only been a means to an end for Crowley, Crowley had still been the best friend Aziraphale had found in six thousand years. Crowley had been his best friend, and Aziraphale should be happy for him being out of danger.

“On a bus to Mayfair,” Crowley grunted, slouching down even farther. He let his head rest on the back of the bench. “Just need the blessed thing to show up.”

Aziraphale grimaced. “I am sorry, about the bentley.”

Crowley shrugged, his features drawing tight against a flash of pain. “’s just a car.”

It hadn’t been anything close to just a car, and Aziraphale considered pointing out that Crowley could admit it, now that he didn’t have Hell ready to wrench it away from him just to make him feel the loss of it or ready to threaten it just to remind him that he’d never have anything they couldn’t take away. Aziraphale opened his mouth, then thought better of it and closed it again. He’d done rather enough damage over the past week, lecturing a demon. He’d been so damned sure that he’d been right, was the thing. He’d been so sure, and he’d been so damned _wrong_.

Aziraphale rubbed the back of his neck, trying to muster the courage to ask a question and bear up in the event of a refusal. Crowley… Crowley liked him, under it all. Aziraphale clung to that. Any angel would have done in a pinch, but Aziraphale told himself that Crowley had preferred him to the other options.

“Would you mind terribly if I caught a lift back with you?” Aziraphale asked, trying to dredge a few last embers of good cheer from somewhere and failing miserably. “I mean, if you, ah, summoned a whole bus, there should be plenty of room, and…”

Crowley was staring at him like he’d sprouted horns and started swearing allegiance to Satan, and Aziraphale quailed. He supposed it didn’t matter, really, where he sat twiddling his thumbs until the archangels came to collect him. He’d just thought it might be nice to do it in London, maybe at the park where he and Crowley had whiled away so many hours feeding the ducks and pretending to have vital business to conduct.

“As opposed to what, angel?” Crowley asked, head swiveling around slowly. “’m hardly going to leave you by yourself in the middle of fucking nowhere, surrounded by,” he jerked his hand in a circle around his head, “fucking nothing, am I?”

“Oh.” Aziraphale felt ashamed of how much that little shred of consideration meant. Crowley did like him, he did. “That’s very kind of you.”

Crowley stared at him again, his face unreadable. 

“Satan give me strength,” he finally mumbled, holding his hand out for the bottle. Aziraphale passed it back, and Crowley drank deep and long.

It clicked after another second, Aziraphale’s tired brain catching up with things a shade too late to apologize. Demons weren’t nice, weren’t kind, weren’t considerate. He’d tried that one recently enough that he should have known better than to offer it again so soon.

A pair of bright headlights hove into view, and Crowley stretched. “About fucking time.”

He got to his feet and cracked his neck, then let out an irritated hiss when the headlights got close enough for them to see that it very much was not a bus. The International Express van screeched to a stop, and the driver hopped out. Crowley glared at him, seemingly out of sheer principle, and Aziraphale frowned. He’d almost forgotten the box wedged between them on the bench, his mind too frazzled and too full to linger on the dreadful contents.

The deliveryman trotted up to them, looking about as worn and wrung-out as Aziraphale felt. He checked the list on his clipboard against the box Aziraphale was only too happy to hand him, then looked expectantly at Aziraphale.

“There’s meant to be a sword?” the man prompted, and Aziraphale opened his mouth to answer before realizing that he hadn’t put it in the box after all.

Crowley looked between them, eyebrows climbing toward his hairline, and Aziraphale blinked, then started forward. 

“Oh!” He chuckled nervously. Six thousand years, and it was still so much a part of him he’d stopped noticing it the moment his eyes were off it. Maybe that was why saving the world had cost him his place in it--it hadn’t really been his. An angel could play at mortality, but in the end it would fall away like so much peeling wallpaper. “Sitting on it. Ha.”

Crowley rubbed his face and looked away, and Aziraphale tucked the sword into the box and signed for everything. He supposed at least they’d been good for something, at the last. Crowley’s lips pursed, a question on the tip of his tongue when the next set of headlights rounded the curve.

“Ah.” Crowley pushed himself to his feet, fatigue written in every over-correction and too-broad movement. “Here we are, then.”

“It says Oxford,” Aziraphale said, frowning.

“And yet, it’s London-bound,” Crowley told him, smiling thinly. “Probably be a bit of a surprise to the driver when he realizes, but what’s one more in a day that’s been full of them?”

“I suppose I should get him to let me off at the park,” Aziraphale murmured, trying to make himself feel brave. If he felt brave, it would be easier to be brave, and he had a feeling he’d very much need to be brave in the next day or so.

Crowley stared at him again.

“You said the bookshop burned,” Aziraphale reminded him.

Crowley stared harder, then had to look away to raise a hand, gesturing for the bus to stop. 

“Unbefuckinglievable.” It was almost under Crowley’s breath, almost too soft and too quick for Aziraphale to catch. His heart sank at the bald-faced frustration in it. 

The bus doors swung open, and suddenly it didn’t seem to matter whether Aziraphale got on it or not. The archangels would find him here as well as anywhere else, and he was so very tired.

“Up you come, angel,” Crowley sighed, taking him by the hand and less pulling him up than leaning away until his weight made Aziraphale’s ascent an inevitability. “You’ll stay with me until you’re back on your feet. Long as you like, plenty of room, probably spend most of the next year sleeping this off anyway.” He scoffed quietly. “The _park_.”

“I… wh…” Aziraphale swallowed, almost stumbling as Crowley tugged him along in his wake, up the steps and down the aisle. “I don’t mean to intrude.”

“Well, you’re not moving into the park and living like a hobo,” Crowley said, flinging himself into the first set of unoccupied seats.

Aziraphale paused and looked down at him, a tiny flicker of hope springing back to life in his heart. He stifled the smile that wanted to light up his face and sat down quickly, narrowly missing an unceremonious drop when the bus lurched back into motion. He glanced sidelong at Crowley, and the demon smirked at him, exhaustion barely dampening it.

“’sides, it’s hardly an intrusion, is it?” Crowley asked quietly. His hand found Aziraphale’s and squeezed, a reassurance in the flesh, and Aziraphale’s heart skipped a beat. “Not when it’s you.”

“I.” Aziraphale scarcely dared to squeeze back in case it was some terrible trick, one last terrible blow in a week that had been one horror after another. “Hm.”

Crowley squeezed his hand again, then let go and wedged his arm between his face and the bus window, a dubious pillow for such a long ride. Aziraphale waited until the demon was snoring softly, then reached out and threaded their fingers together.

 _Not when it’s you._ The words kept him warm all the way back to Mayfair.

* * *

Crowley pushed open his broken door, frowning at the jamb until it gave in and righted itself. He made it all of three feet past the threshold before turning around and scuttling back out, an embarrassed look on his face and an “Oh, for fuck’s sake!” on his lips.

Aziraphale cocked his head, and Crowley sucked at his teeth and looked at the floor.

“I, uh. That is.” He puffed out his cheeks. “The holy water. Had to use it on the retrieval team they sent after me when they realized Warlock wasn’t the Antichrist.”

“Oh.” Aziraphale shuddered at that. He wasn’t sure which was worse, the risk Crowley had been running with the holy water or the risk he’d been running with Warlock. Not that it mattered now, but oh, how close they’d come to losing everything.

“Don’t suppose you’d mind…?” Crowley scrunched his face and raised his eyebrows, tilting his head at the interior of the apartment.

“Oh.” Aziraphale tried to keep it from showing on his face. Crowley had only invited him because he’d needed someone to deal with the hazardous waste in the apartment. Well, at least the demon had had the good grace to pretend it was an afterthought, an ancillary concern, the farthest thing from his thoughts until just now. “Of course. Just a moment.”

Aziraphale ventured into the foyer, shivering at the chill of the place. It looked like a museum, someplace not meant to be lingered in long, never mind lived in. The rest of it wasn’t much better, devoid of any sort of creature comfort or softness. This couldn’t really be how Crowley _liked_ things, could it? Aziraphale twisted his ring, lips pursing. What must Crowley have always thought of the shop, if this was what he considered good housekeeping?

The idea of it was uncomfortable, but nothing compared to the sudden sight of what must have once been a demon curdled into a miserable puddle in the middle of the floor. Aziraphale swallowed the impulse to gag at it, his heart in his throat at the idea that it could have so easily been Crowley.

It was the work of perhaps half an hour to get the pathetic remains miracled away to a more suitable location and the remainder of the water desanctified. Crowley was by his side the moment it was done, apologizing again with a few half-formed sentences and a fatigued shrug.

“Didn’t mean to invite you over and then, y’know, put you to work.” Crowley looked around slowly and ran his fingers through his hair. He blinked a few times, as if it was finally settling on him that it was all happening, and then plucked at his jacket and wrinkled his nose. “Back in a tick, angel. Make yourself at home, yeah?”

He disappeared down the hallway, and Aziraphale looked around. Now that the holy water and its casualty were gone, the place seemed even more pristine than it had before. He sat down gingerly on the couch, which didn’t feel as if it had really been designed to be sat upon, and clasped his hands in his lap. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d felt too grubby to touch anything, Heaven excepted. Perhaps, he thought, the park really would have been better.

When Crowley returned, all traces of soot and sweat and grime were gone, and he’d changed into something a bit less… Aziraphale found it difficult to think of anything the demon wore that counted as _formal_ , really, but it was also rare to see him in something as uncomplicated as jeans and a henley. He stopped short when he saw Aziraphale, shook himself, and immediately doubled back the way he’d come.

Aziraphale chewed his lip and sighed. Yes, the park would have been better. He could have still imagined himself happy here, if he’d insisted on the park.

Crowley staggered back into the living room half-smothered under a towering pile of cushions and blankets, peering around them in a mostly-successful attempt not to trip over or bark his shins on anything. Aziraphale gaped at him; everything in the demon’s arms felt as perfectly out of place in the apartment as he did himself. Crowley dumped it all next to him on the sofa in a heap and made a show of dusting off his hands.

“Knew that lot’d come in handy some day,” he said cheerfully, clearly pleased with himself. “Something to drink, angel? Tea?”

“A bit stronger than tea, I should think,” Aziraphale managed. Crowley blinked at him slowly, assessing, and Aziraphale realized what a terribly long time it had been since Crowley had started wearing those damned glasses all the time. There was something scorching now, about having those eyes on him like this. He’d lost his tolerance for it.

Crowley snapped his fingers and was in motion again, quick and fluid as if he’d never stopped in the first place. “Just the thing, angel.”

He waved his hand over his shoulder in the vague direction of the blankets and pillows as he stalked toward the kitchen.

“As you like, wherever you want, make yourself at home.”

Aziraphale stopped short, his hand on the first pillow, and squeezed it carefully. It looked so much like something he’d have picked out for himself to shore up a sagging armchair or make up for the padding on a couch’s arm going thin. He pushed a pair of them behind him, filling the cavernous gap between his back and the sofa’s cushions. The blankets were soft, warm, and…

“Is this my tartan?” Aziraphale asked, raising his voice enough that Crowley couldn’t pretend not to hear him.

Crowley poked his head around the corner, an elaborately innocent frown on his face. “Dunno, is it? Can’t expect me to keep track of things like that with everything else going on.”

He disappeared again before Aziraphale could call him a liar, and the angel shut his mouth slowly. What had he even wanted to say?

Aziraphale’s fingers dug into the blanket. It didn’t feel miracled, and it didn’t feel especially new. If he held it to his face, he suspected it would smell the same as the rest of the apartment, as if it had been here, waiting, for a very long time.

He closed his eyes and took a slow, deep breath. _Please. Please, I know, I_ know _what I’m asking, but I’ve asked for so little…_

It wasn’t really true, though, was it? Even in the quiet stillness of his own mind, he could hear the immediate retort: he’d asked for a great deal, down through the ages. He was constantly asking for things, constantly asking for things he shouldn’t want, never mind have the gall to actually voice a desire for. He’d spent the last six thousand years wanting and asking and _bothering_ everyone with his wanting and his asking.

Wanting, and asking, and so very rarely getting.

Aziraphale opened his eyes and blinked back tears. Would it be so wrong, so awful, if Crowley could love him back? Would it fly so very much in the face of creation’s order?

He smoothed out the parchment with its warning and read it again. So long as he could solve the riddle, so long as he could dodge what was coming, he’d have the rest of eternity to find out. Crowley had always been so fond of new things, hadn’t he? Always so curious, always asking questions--surely he’d be game if Aziraphale said, “Do you think you could learn to love me?”

And then Crowley was there, snatching the scrap from his fingers and depositing a mug in its place. “Hot toddy, angel--drink up. What’s this?”

Aziraphale sputtered and reached for the prophecy, but Crowley had already sidled just out of reach, squinting at it and pursing his lips. “‘When all is said and all is done, ye must choose your faces wisely, for soon enough ye will be playing with fire.’ The heaven’s that supposed to mean?”

“Nothing, I’m sure,” Aziraphale said quickly, setting the mug down on the table and getting to his feet. He hadn’t understood until just now how desperately he needed Crowley kept out of whatever was coming, how instinctively he’d known that he shouldn’t tell Crowley. Humanity was safe. Earth was safe. Crowley was safe. Those three things--if they stayed true, he could face down anything. But Crowley was always so curious, always asking questions, always poking his nose into the nearest hornets nest. Always trying to drag Aziraphale out of trouble. “Just, give it back, won’t you?”

Crowley’s eyes narrowed as his gaze flicked from the paper in his hands to Aziraphale and back. “It’s one of that Nutter woman’s predictions.”

“Yes, well.” Aziraphale huffed. “I haven’t quite figured it out yet. It’s probably already passed, but anyway, it’s really no concern of yours, so please--”

“No concern of…” Crowley’s eyebrows shot up. “Not that I had as much time to pore over the blasted thing as you did, but--”

“Crowley,” Aziraphale pleaded quietly, holding out his hand. This was not a pack of misguided humans bent on discorporating him who could be put off with some fast talk and a cheap miracle. Heaven had been very much looking forward to destroying Hell; the thought of all that pent-up, frustrated wrath focused on one stray demon was intolerable.

“--I did happen to notice that good old Agnes was very much still in the habit of reserving ‘you’ for the plural.”

Aziraphale froze, a cold horror creeping through him. Crowley was wrong. Crowley had to be wrong. The only acceptable option was Crowley being wrong. He shook his head helplessly against the growing certainty that Crowley was right; the prophecies he’d made his way through before arriving at the Antichrist’s location had adhered rather strictly to the then-fading convention. An old woman living in a small hamlet in a sleepy county, where the language changed more slowly than it had in London.

“No.” Aziraphale shook his head, more firmly this time. “ _No._ ”

“Aziraphale,” Crowley sighed. That indulgent sort of sympathy he always had for Aziraphale’s complaints clouded his handsome face, and Aziraphale sat down heavily, hands balling into fists and tears threatening to fall.

“You should be safe,” he breathed, shaking his head. He lacked the conviction of it this time, though, could feel it for the denial it was. “You deserve to be safe.”

“And you don’t?” Crowley asked softly, settling onto the couch next to him. Aziraphale ground the heels of his palms into his eyes, willing himself not to cry. Crowley clicked his tongue and tugged at his wrists. “None of that, now, angel. You can’t think I’d leave you to deal with it on your own even if I was well out of it.”

Aziraphale wanted to remind him that he’d tried to do exactly that, wanted to be waspish and drive that solicitous tone right back out of Crowley’s voice, wanted to not be reminded of everything he stood to lose if Crowley got caught up in this. But Crowley hadn’t, had he? He’d threatened to, and every time, instead of leaving he’d come back and begged Aziraphale to go with him.

“I made my choice,” Aziraphale told him, swallowing against the sensation of his throat closing. He wouldn’t cry now, not after he’d made it through everything else without breaking down. “I knew what I was risking, and I risked it willingly.”

Crowley cocked his head and arched an eyebrow, his eyes tired but still gently amused. Aziraphale screwed his eyes shut against it, and yes, wonderful, there were those hot wet streaks running down his cheeks. Crowley wiped his tears away carefully, then wrapped deceptively strong arms around him and crushed Aziraphale to his chest.

“Shh, angel.” Crowley rocked him slightly, stroking his back as if he was a child who’d woken from a nightmare. Aziraphale sniffled to himself and wanted to laugh with it. He’d woken to a nightmare, was what he’d done. Finally opened his eyes and seen things for what they were, and oh how he wanted to shut them again. “We’ll figure it out. Got everything else down, didn’t we?”

“It’s not fair,” Aziraphale mumbled. The tears that fell this time were absorbed straight into Crowley’s shirt, and Crowley’s hand settled on the back of his head, fingers carding lightly through his hair. It felt good enough that Aziraphale began calming down in spite of himself, and he shivered at the spike of bitterness that provoked. This was what he stood to lose, and for what? Gabriel’s ego? Beelzebub’s hurt feelings?

“Never said it was, angel,” Crowley told him. The bastard even sounded apologetic about it, and Aziraphale could sob at it. “But fair or not, it _is_.”

“You--” Aziraphale leaned back and scrubbed the back of his arm over his treasonous eyes. “You defeated Satan himself, Crowley. They went and told Satan, and you beat him. It’s over, surely. For you, it’s over.”

Crowley pressed the mug into his hands and lifted them to his lips, and Aziraphale drank grudgingly. It was precisely what he needed, and he couldn’t help a little stab of resentment at it for soothing him. He didn’t want to be soothed, when everything called for him to be upset.

“For one thing, I did somewhere between fuck-all and not much on that score,” Crowley reminded him. “For another thing, even if I had been the one to pull it off, it’s not exactly Queensbury rules in Hell. You beat someone fair and square, that usually just tells ‘em they need to cheat a lot more next time.” 

He nudged the mug back up when Aziraphale let it dip toward his lap, and Aziraphale glared at him. The demon smirked in the face of that glare, knowing full well that Aziraphale didn’t mean it, and Aziraphale wanted to cry all over again.

“Besides, if there was any justice to it, you pulling that whole Great Plan-Ineffable Plan thing would have had Gabriel scampering all the way to the throne to ask for clarification, and that’d be you off the hook entirely.” Crowley sprawled back and braced one elbow across the back of the couch, knuckles jammed against his cheek. “You think that’s what happened?”

“No,” Aziraphale admitted, his voice soft.

Crowley spread his free hand, then let it drop to his thigh. “There we are. Can’t expect any less bastardry out of Hell than we do out of Heaven, can we?”

Aziraphale blew his nose and finished the hot toddy. It really wasn’t fair, and somehow, some part of him had been counting on it to be. “You were supposed to be safe, after all this.”

“Kind of you, but I made my choice, too,” Crowley pointed out. Aziraphale tried to wrap his mind around that, blinking dumbly at the affectionate smile lurking at the edge of Crowley’s lips. It occurred to him that maybe Crowley wouldn’t need much time at all to learn to love him, and that made it all the worse.

“When have they ever given you a choice, Crowley?” he asked, finally. “When have they ever given you anything but orders, and grief, and threats, and pain?”

Crowley glared at him, eyes narrowing to slits even as Crowley’s gaze was suddenly somewhere to the left of Aziraphale’s face. “They didn’t _give_ me a choice, angel. I don’t remember the archangels being overly fond of calling plebiscites on anything, either, if you want to talk about being given choices. We still found our own ways to be something more than puppets.”

Aziraphale swallowed and blotted his eyes again. No, Crowley had never been a puppet. And yet…

“You were supposed to be safe,” he murmured, shaking his head sadly. He’d been counting on it so much, when he’d made that last gamble. It was supposed to have been for the whole pot. He’d taken such an awful risk; the reward should have been grand enough to match.

Crowley leaned his head on the back of the couch, resting his cheek along his forearm, and watched Aziraphale. He looked tired, and fond, and every bit of his six thousand years.

“Safe’s not all it’s cracked up to be,” he said, and his tone made Aziraphale’s heart ache. “Not when it means being alone.” His hand found Aziraphale’s. “Not if it comes at your expense.”

Aziraphale looked down at those long, clever fingers twined with his, at that sallow thumb tracing a careful, feather-light line across the back of his knuckles. How many times had Crowley tried to leave in the past week, tried to go only to circle back and beg Aziraphale to come with him again? And then when Crowley had thought Aziraphale was gone for good, he’d…

Aziraphale rubbed his eyes and sniffled. He’d been so very, very blind. “You love me.”

“Mmm.” Crowley’s fingers tightened around his for a moment, then relaxed again. “And you love me. Now that’s out of the way, we should probably order in and figure out what the heaven Agnes was on about, yeah?”

Aziraphale stared at him, unable to reconcile the lopsided smile and the limpid gold of his eyes with what he’d just said.

“You. I. _You,_ ” he managed, and Crowley’s eyes crinkled in that way they had when he was trying very hard not to laugh.

“Which part’re you stuck on this time?” he asked, the edge of his lips tugging up.

“You _knew_!” Aziraphale cried. Crowley had known, and Crowley had never said anything, and what if--

“Snakes have excellent peripheral vision,” Crowley said simply, not raising his head from his forearm. “Comes in handy when certain people keep giving them the soppiest, goopiest looks every time they think their back’s turned.”

Aziraphale flushed scarlet at that, at the thought of Crowley laughing to himself down through the centuries at Aziraphale’s attempts to be clever and careful.

“You never said,” he said, ashamed of the way his voice quavered. Crowley sighed and tugged his hand up to meet Crowley’s lips, pressing a gentle, slow kiss to the back of it.

“You seemed pretty blessed intent on not letting on, angel. Figured you’d say something when you were ready.” Crowley let their hands drop back to rest on the couch between them. “Didn’t want to go jumping the gun on you.”

“Didn’t it bother you, that I didn’t…” Aziraphale stopped, looking for the words that would cover how many times he’d denied that they were friends, claimed he didn’t know Crowley, called him names. And that was before the past week, with its _I don’t even like you_ and God only knew what else he’d said in his desperation.

“It did at first,” Crowley confessed, the smile losing some of its volume. “Let it get to me a bit, when you just kept not saying anything about it. But it was enough, most days, that you did. That if I looked away for a minute and pretended I wasn’t paying attention, you’d smile at me again.”

“Oh.” Aziraphale pursed his lips. It had been enough, most days, to feel like Crowley genuinely liked him. “How long have you… that is, when did you start…”

“Loving you?” Crowley asked, smirking, and Aziraphale flushed for a very different reason. How much time and energy had he wasted over the millennia trying to find Crowley less handsome? “Dunno, really. Kind of blurs the dates, when you spend long enough lying to yourself about what something is.” 

Crowley picked at the tartan blanket, his eyes anywhere but Aziraphale’s face, and his expression turned soft and wistful.

“Probably that business in Nicomedia with Bishop Wossisname--the one who got Constantine?--was the real tipping point. When I saw you in Mercia after that, I pretty well lost my head,” Crowley said wryly. “What was it I even tried to talk you into? Holing up in a pub with a decent menu and a big fireplace and sending the occasional memo about thwarting each other to keep the brass off our backs? First thing I thought of came blurting right out of my mouth--I just didn’t want you to go away again, for as long as I could swing it. I tried to tell myself after you flounced off in a huff that it was only loneliness, that I’d been on Earth by myself too long, but I didn’t want anyone else.” He rubbed Aziraphale’s knuckles slowly, lashes going low and heavy across his eyes. “Only you. Hard to keep up with telling myself it was just that you were an interesting distraction after that.”

“Oh.” Aziraphale tried not to do the math, tried not to think _seventeen hundred years_ , tried not to just lean forward and kiss the demon. “Crowley, could I… That is, would it be all right if I…”

Crowley raised his eyebrows and waited for Aziraphale to collect himself, and Aziraphale thought of Crowley’s arm around his shoulders, warm and comforting, those three days after Golgotha. He thought of Crowley’s eventual, grudging smiles that first night in Rome, when he’d dragged the demon out for oysters and not let him go until his sour mood had lifted. Crowley’s hand on his back, steadying him when he might slip. Crowley’s hand in his, pulling him back to his feet when he did. Crowley’s lips breaking into a smile, just for Aziraphale, because he’d said something clever, or funny, or that Crowley would never have thought of.

Aziraphale leaned forward slowly, raising his hand to cup Crowley’s cheek, and brushed his lips over the demon’s. When he rocked back, brows furrowed, Crowley was beaming at him, and Aziraphale had never imagined him looking so pleased.

“Now who’s going all soppy?” Aziraphale asked, flushing.

“Says the pot to the kettle,” Crowley snorted, uncoiling from his previous slouch just enough to nuzzle at Aziraphale’s throat. “You should see the look on your own face, angel. I’ve half a mind to put you in front of a mirror.” 

Aziraphale’s heart fluttered in his chest at the feeling of Crowley’s lips on his neck, his nerves flickering to life as if this was all he’d ever been waiting for. He buried his fingers in Crowley’s hair and yes, it was as warm and wonderful as he’d always imagined it would be. Crowley grunted and mouthed at his neck with significantly more focused intent, and Aziraphale closed his eyes and reveled in the feeling of soft, careful lips sucking gently at his skin.

“I love you,” he sighed, the words burnishing his tongue with the saying of them. How many times had it almost slipped out over the years? He could say it as much as he liked, now--it wasn’t as if he could make Heaven any angrier with him, nor Hell with Crowley. “I love you so much, Crowley.”

“Mmm. Love you a fair bit, too, angel,” Crowley said, working his way up to kiss Aziraphale’s jaw. He wrapped his arms around Aziraphale’s waist and leaned on him, cheek pressed to Aziraphale’s shoulder. “Mind if I try something?”

Aziraphale shook his head, laughing and squirming away when Crowley’s breath tickled him.

“That’s a sound I haven’t heard in too long,” Crowley murmured, grinning at him. He twisted around on the sofa so that his feet were on the floor, then reached over and dragged Aziraphale into his lap.

“I say!” Aziraphale gasped, feeling a blush to answer the one on his cheeks bloom down his throat and chest.

“Usually, yeah,” Crowley said, his grin going devilish. His arms wound around Aziraphale again, and he pulled the angel tight against him and leaned back comfortably, his chin coming to rest on Aziraphale’s shoulder. He sighed, satisfied. “There--perfect. Always knew it would be.”

“Oh.” Aziraphale relaxed against him, letting the roundness of his corporation fit into place against the sharpness of Crowley’s angles. “Oh, this is nice, isn’t it?”

“Humans are always holding each other like this. Figured there had to be something to it, for it to keep popping up like that.” Crowley smiled at him, those golden eyes going darker the wider Aziraphale smiled at him. “Kiss me again?”

Being in Crowley’s lap turned out to be terribly convenient for kissing the demon, and Aziraphale pressed his lips to Crowley’s--gently at first, then with more hunger. It clawed at him, that this might be their last chance. It thrilled through him, that at least they had this much. When he turned away and set his forehead against Crowley’s cheek, they were both thrumming with it.

“I love you, angel.” There was a fierceness to it this time, when Crowley said it, a fire in his eyes. “I’m not going to let them hurt you. Not now, not ever again.”

Aziraphale squeezed Crowley to him, arms going tight around Crowley’s shoulders. They only had to figure out the prophecy, and then they could have this forever. They only had to figure out the prophecy, and then Crowley really would be safe.

He kissed Crowley’s brow, then sat back with a sigh. “Likewise, I hope it goes without saying. We should… we should get to work, shouldn’t we?” He took a little breath, trying to steady himself around that determination in Crowley’s face, that answering joy in his own breast. “I believe you mentioned ordering in?”

“Ha.” Crowley flicked out his tongue, his gaze gentle and knowing, and how had Aziraphale ever doubted him? “Thought that might get your attention. How does souvlaki sound?”

Aziraphale closed his eyes and thought of all the squares and markets and plays they’d wandered through, skewer or bread in hand, grilled morsels picked at in between points scored in a debate or natural bends in their meandering conversation. They’d had whole lifetimes together, added up across six thousand years. Whole lifetimes together, and he still wanted so much more.

“It sounds perfect, Crowley.” Aziraphale kissed him, light and warm. “Absolutely perfect.”

How many times had Crowley pretended to be engrossed in his food and waited for Aziraphale to smile at him, watched from the corner of his eye for that adoration to steal back across Aziraphale’s face? How many times had Aziraphale let it, thought himself a master of subterfuge even as a twin fire was kindled in Crowley’s heart at knowing he was loved? They’d had each other for so much longer than they’d even known, and Aziraphale couldn’t help kissing him again, trying to put some of that love into a more tangible form for once. 

Crowley’s expression bordered on dazed, when Aziraphale broke away, and Aziraphale could only remember the first time they’d met, when Crowley had stared at him in delighted shock, Aziraphale’s sword ablaze in Adam’s hand all the way out in the desert.

“It really does, doesn’t it?” Crowley murmured, his smile soft at the edges and his hands firm on Aziraphale’s waist. “Absolutely perfect.”


End file.
